I think the reason people love touch screens is because of how natural the hand gestures feel. For example, to scroll down a document, it feels better to just swipe down instead of pressing a little arrow key. If you’re looking to bring some of these intuitive gestures to your Windows computer, then might I humbly recommend that you enable Pen flicks.

To utilize pen flicks, your computer must be touch screen, or your laptop’s trackpad must support gestures. If you have a graphics tablet, then that will also allow pen flicks as well.

Begin by pressing the Start button, and selecting Control Panel.

Select the Classic view, and double click Pen and Input Devices.

Now choose the Flicks tab, and check the box labeled Use flicks to perform common actions quickly and easily.

Now you have two options: the navigation flicks, or the navigational flicks with editing. I personally prefer the latter, as it allows me to copy and paste with ease. Choose the option that best suits you, and of course, you can always change this setting.

If you select Customize, you can hand select what action a flick in a certain direction will perform. If you’d like to add a custom keyboard shortcut, just select the add option. For example. I made it so that a downward flick will close the program using the keyboard shortcut Alt+F4.

Finally, one last setting I’d like to bring to your attention is the flick sensitivity. If you find that you have to repeat a gesture several times before Windows recognizes it, then you should make the sensitivity more relaxed. However, if you find gestures are occurring by accident, than you should move the slider to the precise setting.

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